Shattered Haven (DnD Campaign Setting)/Organizations
The Government The Noble Houses The Resistance The Guild of Steamwrights The Runners ''Running. The air across your face. The city's face beneath your feet. The whole city looks so small when you're running. But people want to stop you from running. They have their rules, their regulations, their silly little laws that they think they can enforce upon you. And if they catch you, they just might. But until then, you're free, jumping from rooftop to rooftop on buildings that seem to almost scrap the very sky, jumping from wall to wall and reaching places where your pursuers could never hope to catch you. And while you're at it, why not make a few coins here and there running errands for those who would buck the law as well?'' The Runners of Tilroth are an elusive group who specialize in moving quickly from place to place; often they act as messengers for various groups who are enemies with the government and police, a free source of moving information from one place to another without the eyes of officials scanning every single document that passes them by. They run, live, breathe and eat on the edges of society, far above the city where troubles appear far smaller. While some are [[Jumper_(3.5e_Class)|jumpers]], others might be scouts, monks, or simply folk who are trained in acrobatics. The elusive leader of the Runners is an [[SRD:Aranea|aranea]] (Factotum 4 / Spymaster 4) who goes by the moniker of Spinster; she assigns jobs to various runners, all the while making sure to keep her subordinates out of places they can't handle while keeping them informed of any trouble they might encounter. A few notable subordinates who manage runners under the watchful eye of Spinster include a Changeling (Rogue 7) named Nelsat, a Whisper Gnome (Scout 6) by the name of Sels'na, and the kobold Zu'uk (Spellthief 9). Gangs ''The city is a cesspool of depravity and filth. But it's our cesspool, and we're the filth. So I guess that's alright. It's hard to live from day to day--if you're not part of a pack, you're just another loner waiting for the police to take you in and rough you up. But there's strength in numbers; as long as you're in a group they usually won't risk it. We control this side of town, but every day we need to remind others that this territory's ours. Other gangs try to encroach on our space, pushers unrelated to us get members hooked on a variety of uppers and downers, and you don't know if you'll wake up dead with a dagger in your back tomorrow. From another gang, or from someone in your own that has a grudge against you.'' Life in Tilroth can be hard, and either you're pushed around or push others around. The ones who push congregate in gangs, often with a single leader who controls the gang and proves that they're the top dog for a reason. Gang fights are common, and often enough the victims are folk unaffiliated with either gang when fights break out. In the shadier areas of town strongly controlled by the gangs the only order is that instated by the gang, and even the police don't dare to venture there. Many of the gangs run various schemes to bring in the money needed to buy new weapons for recruits off the streets, engaging in protection rackets that target prostitution, entertainment, bars and shopping, as well as other schemes such as blackmail. Each group has its own rituals, including hazings, punishments for failures (one example of which is cutting off the smallest finger at the knuckle for a large mistake) and so on. One such gang is the Broken Tooth gang, led by Marissa One-Eye, a [[SRD:Phrenic_Creature|phrenic]] half-elf (Factotum 3 / Warblade 8). Her lieutenant is the crafty halfling (Rogue 4 / Swashbuckler 2 / Swordsage 2) who goes only by Dirt. Raiders Rangers Abominations of the Waste Demons ''We wait for our time. Bound for millenia, biding our time, shackled beneath the earth we wait. But the chains that bind us slowly crumble and break against our ceaseless efforts against them. Our numbers are countless, and were we able to simply be free we would show the mortal races what true destruction and depravity is. A glorious killing the like of which they have never seen. We simply wait. Our time is coming--not tomorrow, not the day after, perhaps not even within the next century. But our bindings slowly loosen.'' Ages ago in time long forgotten now, the war between the surfacers and the demons ended with the great mages enacting binding rituals that sealed the demons beneath the ground. Yet those rituals are slowly eroding with time, and at times one of the demons break free--often enough a quasit or imp, though sometimes something far more insidious. The stronger demons often possess people in power when they get free, and control their vessel to destroy arcane relics of the past, hoping to hasten the day when all demons are free. Zeltukal The Scarlet Fang ''Can you not hear her? Our mother cries in pain, wracked by a corruption not of her doing. She cries in rage, in pain, in agony. Yet we are all part of nature--so let us follow her example. We will tear and rip and break the civilization that binds us until we once more return to our mother, clearing this blight from her body. And once she is free of the depravity on her very soil, of those who would tear her further for their own petty gains we will be able to rejoin her completely, and may she once more be happy with us and our doings.'' Nature is changed by the arcane corruption that grips the land, a relic of the Exalted's invasion into this plane. And just as it is changed, so are her servants. Druids change into hideous mockaries of the animals they try to emulate, and often lose themselves in the grip of rage, seeing no friend apart from those changed as they are. Their mission is to reclaim the world in the name of nature, eco-terrorists who will do anything to see civilization topple and be replaced by nature, regardless of how warped it might be. The high priest of the order is Fang (Druid 11), zealous and fanatical in his endless hatred for all the markings of society. Many of those who feel a connection to nature, however tenuous, are taken in by Fang and indoctrinated into the order, following his every word and revering him as a living incarnation of nature. The Ebon Hand The Bearers of Pain Monks of Hedonism The Purgers Sisterhood of the Shield